November 1943: World War II teetered in the balance. The Nazis controlled nearly all of the European continent. Japan dominated the Pacific. Allied successes at Sicily and Guadalcanal had gained modest ground but at an extraordinary cost. On the Eastern Front, the Soviets had already lost millions of lives. That same month in Tehran, with the fate of the world in question, the 'Big Three,' Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin,...

A riveting reassessment of Ulysses S. Grant, arguing that the great Civil War commander's battle to save the Union continued to the very end of his presidency when a crisis threatened to fracture the still fragile nation once again.

"In January 1961, President Dwight D. Eisenhower passed the torch to newly elected John F. Kennedy. Even though both men were great leaders, they couldn't have been more different. Eisenhower was a five-star army general during World War II and, at age seventy, had become a beloved, experienced figure in the Republican party. Kennedy was one of the youngest presidents ever elected, a Democrat who represented the hopes and dreams of a new generation....